


Hullabaloo

by wildglitterwolf



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Beginning stages of a relationship, Dancing and Singing, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Rick being a mental mess, Sharing a Bed, new puppy - Freeform, partner dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 10:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23349979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildglitterwolf/pseuds/wildglitterwolf
Summary: Rick is nervous about his upcoming appearance onHullabaloo. Cliff brings his new puppy over to watch the house while Rick is out of town and help Rick get a little ‘practice’ in before he leaves. [fanart inspired work]
Relationships: Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	Hullabaloo

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everyone is surviving alright at this time. I feel ironically I’ve had less time to write despite getting nailed with unemployment but I’ve been doing more art for this fandom lately so that’s a plus. I drew this a couple weeks ago and decided to write something to go with it, if just to explain why Cliff is in his underwear because I honestly don’t know why when I drew it lol

  
  


There are times when Rick regrets ever signing up for a guest appearance on a show. Usually, it comes after it’s been shot and has aired so he’s able to point out every little detail wrong with it. However this time he’s regretted it pretty much since he hung up the phone with NBC.

“Yeah, sure, I can sing. I can dance. No problem!” he told them.

Well today was the day he was leaving for New York for his _Hullabaloo_ appearance tomorrow, and at this moment he was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, just one panic attack away from backing out.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Rick turns his head at Cliff’s mumbling next to him. His eyes were still closed yet he was awake. But Cliff was always good at sensing Rick’s uneasiness from a mile away that he probably could just feel it being this close.

Cliff had spent the night since he was going to be watching the house while Rick was in New York and had moved himself and his new pitbull puppy in for the weekend yesterday afternoon. If Cliff had moved in with Rick like Rick had suggested once he lost his old apartment after his wife died (Rick still wasn’t sure what the truth was with that), then these few and between sleep overs would be more frequent. Instead, Cliff insisted on life in his trailer, saying it would make their already suspicious relationship around their peers a little less so than if they lived together. Plus, Rick had to admit, it made these hookups more meaningful the less they saw of each other.

But this time came with the addition of Brandy, and while Rick wasn’t too keen on the idea of a dog in the house, all thoughts of telling Cliff to kennel her went out the window as soon as he saw the two of them play together. He still pretended to act a bit annoyed, however, just so Cliff couldn’t tell how much the two of them melted his heart. Cliff could still tell, anyways. He always can.

“N-nervous… j-just nervous. I-I-I don’t think I-I can do this, Cliff.”

“You’ve been practicing all week, right? That’s what you told me.”

“I-I didn’t last n-n-night! I was d-distracted!”

Cliff gives him a sly grin; he knew Rick was blaming him for being the ‘distraction’. “So… no more of this this morning?” He reaches his hand under the covers but Rick is too quick for him this time as he rolls out of bed. “Aww, man. You aren’t leaving until this afternoon, why you getting up now?”

“Damnit, Cliff! I need to practice! Now, wh-what did you do with my underwear last night?” 

“Come here, and I’ll tell ya.” Cliff was practically licking his teeth as he watched Rick scramble around in the nude for his clothes from last night, apparently oblivious to the fact he could just pull new underwear out of the drawer.

“Damnit, Cliff, do you ever stop thinking with your dick for a second? I’m about to be the laughingstock i-in front of whole c-country! Why did I agree t-to do this, Cliff? Why? WHY?”

And when the tears start to well up in Rick’s eyes, that’s when Cliff knows he has to tone it down. “Hey, hey, it’s alright, man. You’ll be fine. No one is gonna remember your performance, anyways.”

“Well then what’s the point??”

“Uh. You like entertaining people?”

“N-n-not in front of a live audience! I-I-I-I can’t j-just restart like I can in-in other shit. I’m gonna mess up, Cliff! gonna mess up real b-bad! They’ll fucking laugh at me a-and… and-“ And there went the tears.

Cliff watched as Rick slumped forward on the bed, sobbing into the pile of bed sheets to hide how red his face had gotten. If he was honest, Cliff could sense this meltdown had been coming for the past week; he just wished it didn’t have to be right before Rick had to be on a plane in a few hours. “You wanna cancel?”

“.... No.”

“You want me to help you practice.”

“You c-can’t fix my shit singing. And dancing.”

“You want me to make you breakfast?”

“.... No.”

“Not even a bowl of cereal?”

“No.”

“Are you just going to lie there feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Maybe.”

“You realize your bare ass is exposed and I can just easily reach over and grab-“ 

“Don’t you- AURGH!” Unfortunately for Rick, Cliff was already in the process of reaching over when he quickly raised his head, hitting it square on the stuntman’s abs, knocking Cliff off balance so Cliff fell flat on top of him. Rick went into a panic struggle as he tries to wiggle out from underneath, and Cliff decides to just casually roll off Rick and onto the floor… pulling Rick down with him, of course.

“Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU!!” Rick’s manic level was rising as he kept hitting a giggling Cliff in the chest. After a couple minutes, Rick finally got fatigued enough to where Cliff felt safe enough to hold him.

“Look. It’s gonna be alright. You know what you just gotta do.”

“....What?”

“Approach it like you’re acting. Just play it like you’re playing a character.”

“I’m supposed to be Rick Dalton! Y-you want me to start crying, is that what Rick Dalton the character does? Fucking break down crying?”

“The Rick Dalton I know is also fun. And curses a lot.”

“I can’t curse on network TV.”

“Well. Then aren’t you forced to act anyways?”

Rick huffed but knew Cliff was making sense. If he was going to have to perform as himself not really being himself then might as well exaggerate the whole thing. “I’m going to shower.”

“Want some company?”

“One-track mind, you fucker,” Rick says as he pushes himself off the ground and grabs himself some clean underwear out of his drawer before opening the bedroom door. He had forgotten why they’d closed it in the first place when the small pitbull puppy came bounding into the room, making a beeline for Cliff. “Oh, shit. That’s right. If she fucking pissed on my carpet, I’m strangling you both.”

“Aww, don’t threaten my girl,” Cliff pouted as Brandy came over and started slobbering all over his face as he watched out of the corner of his eye Rick shake his head and head towards the bathroom. “Alright, darling, let me get dressed. Then I’ll let you out.”

Cliff was too lazy to pull out his duffle bag in the other room and just slipped back into his boxers and tank from yesterday. He did take Rick’s warning seriously and checked to make sure Brandy didn’t leave any accidents before opening the front door so she could do her business on the lawn. Luckily Cliff managed to house train her pretty quickly due to living in such a cramped space, but he was still working on training her for feeding time, and being in a new environment and all meant probably having to start from scratch.

“Brandy. Couch.”

Brandy watched as her owner pointed over towards the unfamiliar piece of furniture, but she recognized the sign all the same that Cliff wanted her over there. She was still a small pup and hadn’t tackled something this high before, so after a few moments of pacing back and forth, she finally settles on the spot she’s going to jump and leaps for it, getting most of her upper body on but scrambles and claws up the cushion trying to get the rest of herself on.

“Oh, uhh… shit. Rick is… not going to like that.” Cliff goes over to inspect the damage, gently moves Brandy over, and flips the cushion to hide it. “There. Now just gotta hope he doesn’t decide to build a fort or something and see that.”

“Arf!”

“Nah, not going to discipline you for that when it was my direction to get you on. However… I don’t want to see you doing that for fun, you got that?”

“Arf!”

“Alright.”

Brandy was also picking up this food routine rather quickly as well. Cliff only had to tell her a couple times not to whine and keep her focus on him. Finally, once she was signalled to her bowl he could fill his own bowl of Wheaties, heavy on the cereal and light on the milk. He eats as he makes his way to the television, flips it on, and makes himself comfortable in Rick’s chair as he watches the news.

“Are you in your underwear?? Get the fuck out of my chair, that’s nasty, Cliff,” Rick yells as he can see Cliff from the hallway after stepping out of the bathroom. “Jesus Christ, and I know those aren’t clean.”

“Only a day old, that’s nothing, hon.”

“GET OUT OF MY CHAIR!”

“Alright man, geez.” Cliff stands up to satisfy Rick enough, watches him slam the bedroom door close, and then settles on the couch instead. He keeps one ear on the weather report, the other on Rick’s movements so he knows when to get up before Rick comes out.

Once the usual sunny, partial cloudy, no rain predicted forecast for the week was announced and his bowl empty save for a couple soggy flakes at the bottom, Cliff makes his way back to the kitchen to wash out both his and Brandy’s bowls. The puppy had taken to snoozing by the back sliding door as it was the warmest spot she could find for now.

Cliff finished drying Brandy’s bowl when he heard Rick’s door open in the distance and peeks around the counter to see Rick coming out fully dressed up in a nice suit. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

“Yeah, what, n-not good enough?”

“No, just you’re not wearing that all the way through tomorrow, right?”

“No, I-I-I’m just doing a dress rehearsal, that’s all. I need the television off, alright.”

“Go ahead.” Cliff keeps watching from the kitchen as Rick runs about, turning the TV off and rummaging through his records until he found his copy of Jim Lowe’s “The Green Door” and throws it on the turntable. Cliff realizes he’s actually never heard Rick sing before, and he barely made it in time to pull his head back into the kitchen and bite his tongue once he heard the first few notes out of him.

 _Alright, yeah… I see why he’s worried. Gonna be hard to spin that to a positive…_ Cliff keeps a hand over his mouth as he sticks his head back out. _Shit. The dancing is even worse._

Once the song is over, Cliff walks out into the room, clapping and wolf whistling. “Alright! Great stuff, man. Great stuff.”

“You weren’t even watching!”

“Oh, trust me, I uh… saw enough.”

Yeah, Cliff couldn’t really spin this one and Rick recognized that as another breakdown started brewing. “I suck. I suck I suck I SUCK!!”

“You definitely did last night.”

Rick grabs the pillow off the couch and starts chasing and beating a laughing Cliff with it. “ONE! TRACK! MIND! YOU PERV!”

Cliff keeps giggling as he rounds back and grabs the other pillow off the couch to defend himself with. “I’m just a man with needs, Rick. That’s all.”

“And I need you to put some fucking clothes on.”

“Play the song one more time and I will after.”

Rick stops assaulting him with the pillow long enough to stare him down. “Why? What are you plotting?”

“Oh, you know. On that show they got these girls dancing back up, right? So maybe you’d be more comfortable if I danced along with you.”

“And why the hell you gotta be in y-your underwear to… to do that?”

“Easier to move in, I ain’t got any skirts.”

Rick’s eyes squinted even more if that was even possible. “Fine. But laugh and I’m beating your ass again.”

“I ain’t gonna. Swear it.”

Rick still wasn’t sure if he could trust Cliff, yet somehow, some way, he always does in the end. Still feeling nervous, he grabs a couple cigarettes from his box on the table, lights them both, and offers one to Cliff who takes it. After a deep inhale to calm the nerves, he goes back to the record player and messes around with it until the song starts over, listens to the first few notes, nodding his head slightly to the beat as the vocals get ready to start. But before ‘Midnight’ could escape his open lips, Rick felt his hand being grabbed and his whole body whipped around until Cliff’s got him pressed up against him face to face. “CLIFF! The fuck are you doing?”

“I’ll be honest, partner. It’s your dancing that needs the most work.”

“Th-there’s n-no partner dancing on-on _Hullabaloo_ , Cliff!”

“Ah, just consider this your warmup then,” Cliff smiles, cigarette dangling between his teeth as he starts turning them around in a circle in time with the music and starts singing along himself. 

“ _There’s an old piano and they play it hot, behind the greeeen door!_ ”

“Cliff, shit, you can’t sing either, just stop.”

“ _Don’t know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot, behind the greeeen door!_ ”

“Cliff, I’m serious. You suck worse than me!”

“ _Wish they'd let me in so I could find out what's behind the greeeen door!_ ”

Rick hated this. Hated this because he didn’t actually hate this, just that Cliff’s charm was starting to rub off on him. But after hearing Cliff he knew there was no way he could be worse than him, and he felt this odd confidence in him start to rise as he pulled away from Cliff and picks up the next section. 

“ _Knocked once_ (mimes it) _tried to tell ‘em I’ve been there._ ”

“Yeah, you got it, man!”

“ _Door slammed_ (mimes again) _hospitality’s thin there._ ”

“Oh, I’m sure it is!”

“ _Wonder just what's goin' on in there!_ ” And with a sly grin of his own, Rick grabs Cliff back into position and starts leading him, side-stepping around the whole room with a huge pep in his steps. 

“ _Saw an eyeball peepin' through a smoky cloud behind the greeeen door!_ ”

“Since when did you think you could lead, Dalton?”

“ _When I said Joe sent me someone laughed out loud behind the greeeen door!_ ”

“I bet they did, you can’t trust that Joe, now can you?”

“ _All I want to do is join the happy crowd behind the greeeen door!_ ”

The instrumental part hit, and Cliff switched gears and took back over the lead, which Rick was fine with. Cliff tried to hit him with a few more moves, although it was a bit awkward trying to spin a guy an inch taller than you. Rick obliged by trying to bend down a little, almost slipping and tripping over Brandy, who decided to join in the madness, but caught himself around Cliff’s waist. To Cliff’s pleasant surprise, Rick started laughing over his near spill instead of breaking down over it as he pulled himself up on Cliff’s tank and back into position right before the lyrics started up again.

“ _Midnight one more night without sleepin'._ ” At this point Rick started losing it as he couldn’t stop laughing over the combination of how much fun he was having and how ridiculous this all was.

“You okay there, man?”

Rick shakes his head no, stupid grin on his face as he still tries to keep the song going.

“ _Watchin' till the mornin' comes creepin'._ Hahahaha!”

Cliff steps in to pick it up. “ _Green door, what's that secret you're keepin'?_ ”

“ _Green door, what's that secret you're keepin'?_ ” Rick replies, in a much deeper voice and an over exaggerated expression on his face.

In unison: “ _GREEN DOOR!_ ”

Now both of them were laughing. Cliff couldn’t get over how wholesome this all felt; he didn’t know what last time he ever had this much fun with someone doing something so casual. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he ever has. He puts out his cigarette and bends down to pick Brandy up, giving her a nose kiss. “Ah, darling. You were good too, yes you were! So Rick, think you’re ready?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. It certainly won’t be as entertaining without having you as the backup dancer.”

“Why, that’s mighty high praise, thank ya kindly.”

Rick just nods, as his smile slowly fades and that self-doubt comes crawling back to bite him again.

“It’s going to be alright, Rick. Trust me. Brandy and I will be right here you can call when you’re done, right girl?”

“Arf!”

“Heh. Now, you promised me you’d get dress now when we finished. Time to hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Or… how about we both change to nothing for the next hour before I gotta take you to the airport?”

“Really, Cliff, do you think about ANYTHING else?”

——

Cliff honestly liked taking care of the house while Rick was away. He knew he’d never in his life could afford to be a homeowner, and even just a couple days pretending he was was enough to satisfy him. Plus it gave the new pup more space to stretch her legs; hopefully she wasn’t getting too used to it or she’d never want to leave.

The phone rang around mid afternoon, about the estimated time Cliff considered given the three hour time zone difference. He was stretched out on the couch watching the Dodgers game with Brandy curled up on his chest. “Alright, sweetheart. That must be our boy calling.” He sets her down gently on the floor and gets up to answer. “Rick?”

“I-I-I think I did o-o-o-okay.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess I did.”

“That’s all that matters.”

There was a long pause on Rick’s end. “Thanks, Cliff. For everything.”

“It was no problem, just a silly dance routine. Wasn’t even that polished.”

“No, I-I-I mean everything you’ve ever done for me. Thanks.”

“I love you, too, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

Another pause. “Yeah. Yeah, guess i-it is.”

“So then, Casa Vega after I pick you up from the airport tomorrow?”

“Shit, you really do know me so well.”


End file.
